She blinked open her eyes to find him staring down at her like she was a wonder. “I want to court you.”
“What?”
She wrinkled her nose and he kissed the tip of it.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I want to court you. Formally. Show you my estate. Introduce you to my friends. Buy you pretty trinkets. Learn what makes you happy. Let you get to know me. Will you allow it?”
“I’m not one of your fancy ladies, Captain. You don’t need to court me to get me to sleep with you.”
“My father disrespected my mother. He hid her away like a tawdry secret and I watched it destroy her. It ruined them both, poisoned everything around them. She deserved better and so do you.”
Her heart ached for him, for the boy he’d been, but she wasn’t his mother. He wasn’t his father.
“I want to show you how you deserve to be treated,” he said quietly. “I want you to know what you’re getting yourself into with me.”
What she was getting into… Was he talking about taking her back to the capital?Marryingher?
“You said you didn’t want a wife.”
“I want you.” He kissed her jaw, nibbling his way to her ear and then her throat. His breath drifted over her skin. “Say yes.”
She was having trouble thinking straight. “Are you sure you’re not witch-touched?”
He laughed. “Never more sure of anything.”
He made his way down to the sensitive juncture between her neck and shoulder. A shiver raced over her skin. Her hips arched slightly, brushed against him. He groaned. “Say yes, angel. Please, say yes.”
“Is this courting?”
“It can be. We can make our own rules as we go along.”
She smiled. Of course there would be rules.
She should say no. She didn’t want dresses and trinkets. She didn’t even want to go to the capital. And how could someone like her marry abaron? It was ridiculous.
But she did want Casrian.
He’d drawn a line with her old life on one side—Toam and charms and the woods—and him on the other. He was daring her to step over it.
“You think I’m a witch.”
His blue eyes were black in the dim light. “You’re not a witch.”
It didn’t feel like the truth. It felt like a secret they were agreeing to hide.
She let out a slow breath.
Their lives were very different. The chasm between them vast. She didn’t see how they could ever fit together.
But a courtship wasn’t a promise. It was a hope of the heart. An intention.
A way to delay the inevitable.
“You can court me, Casrian.” A smile twitched her lips. “Or is it ‘my lord’? I should probably start addressing you correctly. I’ll need to figure out where I put my manners after all.”
He growled and rolled over her, his arms sliding beneath her shoulders, his hands coming up to cradle her face, his narrow hips fitting so perfectly between her spread thighs. She thought for a moment he’d changed his mind and a thrill ran through her.
“Don’t you dare start my-lording me.”
